FlexibleFactory

I’ve been roadtesting Google Chrome. Maybe it’s just me, but none of the links to posts on Adobe Feeds work. All you get is the mysterious message:

This web page is not available.

The web page at null might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

More information on this error
Below is the original error message

Error 320 (net::ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE): Unknown error.

This is an example of one of the links. Can any other Chromsters confirm?

The infomation in a previous post about the location of the standalone debug player for Flash Player 10 is now incorrect as Adobe deleted some locations from the Flex subversion repository around the start of the month.

The player 10 debug versions can now be found here:

http://opensource.adobe.com/svn/opensource/flex/sdk/trunk/in/player/10

As far as I can tell (I’ve only checked Windows standalone and Windows plugin, not the activex version), they’re at version 10,0,0,591, released yesterday. The browser plugin installed is a debug version, which will be handy.

I’m really excited by the possibility of using PixelBender filters for audio processing, but at the moment, it seems to be a neglected area of development for the FP10 team, despite the odd mention here and there of its use in operations other than image processing.

I’ve posted several questions to people who might be able to answer, yet no further information has been forthcoming. I’m publishing a digest of these questions below in the hope that somebody might be able to shed a little light on how it is all expected to work…

Issue #1

There has been mention of using the ShaderJob API for non-image related computation. It’s a subject of interest to me as it could be used for processing audio data. However, it seems to be impossible to create PixelBender filters that allow the processing of one dimensional data. I posted a couple of questions on the Adobe forums about this, but have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. Here’s one of the questions that summarises the problem:

The Flash docs say the following:

To process a ByteArray containing a linear array of data (as opposed to image data) set the corresponding ShaderInput instance’s height to 1 and width to the number of 32-bit floating-point values in the ByteArray. In that case, the input in the shader must be defined with the image1 data type.

What must the output be defined as? Float, right? This would mean a simple doNothing filter could be defined as in the attached code below.

<languageVersion: 1.0;>
kernel doNothing
<   namespace : "flexiblefactory.co.uk";
    vendor : "flexiblefactory.co.uk";
    version : 0.1;
    description : "do nothing filter"; >
{
    input image1 src;
    output float dst;
    void evaluatePixel()
    {
        dst = sampleNearest(src, outCoord());
    }
}

But PixelBender gives the following error:

ERROR: (line xx): ‘dst’ : cannot have 1 or 2 channel outputs

So, either my assumptions are incorrect, or PixelBender does not support this kind of operation.

Can an Adobe head tell me what’s going wrong here? Am I barking up the wrong tree or are we waiting for a new version of PixelBender that supports 1dimensional data?

Issue #2

The default endian-ness for all audio big endian, but the default endian for the Shader API when using it to operate on ByteArray instances is little endian. The only way to convert the endian of a ByteArray full of floating point numbers is by iterating through each value, and copying to another ByteArray with differring endian. When moving high volumes of data, this conversion limits the usefulness of a Shader to only more complex calculations.

For instance: a simple Shader designed for setting the gain of an audio stream becomes pointless if you first have to iterate the contents of the ByteArray in Actionscript to change the endian, and subsequently convert the output back again for playback. This would negate any performance gains made by using the Shader.

So, all this talk of using the Shader for audio operations comes with a major drawback, right?

Issue #3

ShaderJob can only be used asynchronously. You set up a ShaderJob instance and call its start method, then wait for the flash.events.ShaderEvent.COMPLETE event. In terms of dealing with audio, working around this will add latency to the signal path, requiring buffering between the data produced by the ShaderJob and the audio output. This isn’t really all that useful if you want to use Shaders for realtime audio processing. I can imagine using bitmaps to work around this, but have not yet tested whether or not this is feasible.

Using the new features of Flash Player 10, it is now possible to load files directly from the users drive.
Click anywhere to load your image into the Flash Player, and experience the faster, smoother rendering of Flash Player 10 with this psychedelic mandala we knocked together.

Flash Player 10 release candidate required.

If (like us at FlexibleFactory) you like living on the bleeding edge then you might want to consider building your own FlexSDK from the source code which is openly available at http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

Read the rest of this entry »

[Note: This article now contains incorrect information. Look here for up to date info.]

For anyone interested in debugging applications built for Flash Player 10 release candidate, the standalone debug version of the player can be found at the following locations:

Windows
Mac
Linux

[see comments for more info]

Interestingly, they are now offered as the primary player in the Flex SVN repo. The former location in the repo for the debug players (http://opensource.adobe.com/svn/opensource/flex/sdk/trunk/in/player/10/) contains out of date (beta 2) versions.

Flash Player 10 release candidate has just been released on Adobe labs.

To compile for this new player you need the latest sdk -
there doesn’t seem to be a debug player available quite yet.

Congratulations to the Flash player/Flex Builder teams!

Here’s a wonderful comment left for us by one of our readers.

this is a very sad web site indeed and a testimony to hours upon hours of wasted lives. you lot should really get a life and get out and about a bit more..you clearly all spend too much time nerding out. think of all the things you lot are missing out on…friends moving on and having proper relationships? you lot could have normal lives too if you were not obssessed with your plastic partners….all your computer talk will mean nothing when you are old and lonely…you knowz it dudes

wow

We’ve been aggregated by Adobe Feeds, which should provide motivation to make more posts. Anyway, welcome to our new readers.

Here’s the slides from the talk we gave to FlashBrighton last night.